Hi, I'm Phi.

About

My name is Philipp van Kempen, I’m 23 years old and living in Munich, Germany. I would like to use this page to introduce myself, my opinion and my projects to you. There is much stuff I am interested in.

Already when I was a young teenager, I started learning programming and web develeopment by myself. Computers and the internet always have been the center of my life beside friendships and music.
My interest in electronics came up after I bought an very old but awesome hifi stereo system , which was unfortunately broken. I spend much time understanding, repairing and reconditioning everything until everything worked fine and loved it, so later I was able to repair other amplifiers, tuners, record players and monitors by myself.

I decided to go to an school (Berufskolleg Beckum, NRW), where I could graduate my a-level in the subjects mathematics and infomation technology in parallel to a training as an information technology assistant. I was able to deepen both of my passions there and beside earning lots of experiencens in topics like server operating systems, networks and object oriented programming, I was introduced in microcontrollers. After I realized many of my project with Raspberry Pi’s before, I was then able to do even more… Most of my project focused on optimizing my workflows and my home. For example home automation, ambient lighting, music streaming, data logging, alarm systems and so on.

As I am playing the guitar since a long long time, music is very important to me. I have been a band member in small local bands and gained some experiences on, in front and behind the stage as musican and technican (light and sound). To balance my life a little bit I go to rock concerts regularly, especially ones by ‘Billy Talent’, my absolute favourite!

As computers have been a big topic for my in the past, I would say video games, especially indie games are also still very important to me. As I have taken part at some game-jams in the past game development and design (pixelart) are nothing new for me, but not my passion.

Since October 2017 I am studying ‘Electrical and Computer Engineering’ @ TU Munich (TUM) which was a great choice because it combines both Computer Technology and Electronics with much possibilities open for the future development of the IT industry.

If you are more interested in my work experience (internships), IT skills,.. please check out my LinkedIn

Thank you for reading and visitig mit page. I hope you can find everything you want to know, but feel free to contact me (information at the bottom of this page)…

Topics

Electrical engineering is definitely my biggest passion. That’s why I’m looking for a career in this field.
Especially “Digital Design” and “Embedded Systems Engineering” are very integresting for me..

Everything started with the elective subject “Technology”, which I visited at the secondary school and taught me stuff like soldering and handling of simple circuits, on the other hand I dealt with the repair of old hi-fi equipment, which improved my understanding of analog circuits a lot.

I applied digital logic for the first time using my RaspberryPi, later I used a DIY Atmel development board and now I mostly tinker with Atmel ATTiny MCUs.

Lately, I’ve also looked at HDLs and expanded my horizons about development with TI Launchpads and ESP8266 modules.

During my bachelor studies in “Electrical and Computer Engineering” I earned much knownledge in different topics. Because it’s way to much to summarize is here, I will append a list of the lectures I participated.

Bachelor studies

Mandatory lectures

Analysis 1

Analysis 2

Analysis 3

Lineare Algebra

Schaltungstechnik 1

Schaltungstechnik 2

Digitaltechnik

Computertechnik (+ Programmieren in C)

Physik

Algorithmen und Datenstrukturen

Elektrizität und Magnetismus

Elektromagnetische Feldtheorie

Stochastische Signale

Signaldarstellung

Werkstoffe der Elektrotechnik

Messsystem- und Sensortechnik

Regelungssysteme

Nachrichtentechnik 1

Elektrische Energietechnik

Elektronische Bauelemente

Optional lectures

Diskrete Mathematik für Ingenieure

Englisch - Intercultural Communication C1

Praktikum VHDL

Embedded Systems Programming Laboratory

Methoden der Unternehmensführung

Digitale Schaltungen

Kommunikationsnetze

Computational Intelligence

Real-Time and Embedded Systems 1

Master studies

VLSI Design Laboratory

SystemC Laboratory

Embedded Systems and Security

Memory Technologies for Data Storage

System-on-Chip Technologies

Electronic Design Automation

…

Music

Music has always been important in my life. More or less often I play the guitar, listen to music and sometimes I try to produce/record my own music.
When I was a teenager, I played in a few punkrock/metal-bands.

My equipment:

Instruments

ESP LTD EC-1000 Vintage Black (E-guitar)

Handmade woodden stratocaster (heirloom, origin unknown)

Takamine EG440SC (Western guitar)

Amps

Peavey Bandit 112 Sheffield (from 1990s)

Acoustic amp (Noname)

Ibanez GTA 15R (Practice amp)

Guitar Effects

ProCo Rat 2 Distortion / Overdrive Pedal

Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer Distortion / Overdrive Pedal

Zoom G1XNext Multieffect Pedal

DIY Volume/Mute/Boost Pedal

Interfaces

M-Audio FastTrack C400 (Recording interface)

HiFi

Canton LGLE 70

SABA MI 212

SABA SABA ULTRA HiFi professional 9140 electronic

SABA Tape Deck, Tuner and Phono

Other

Rode NT1-A microphone

Sennheiser E845 S stage microphone

Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro studio headphones (80 Ohms)

IK Mul­ti­media iRig 2

Wishes

Of course my wish list is infinitely big, however, I plan the purchase of:

Studio montior speakers

…

Gaming

TODO

Hobbies

TODO

Programming

I got in touch with programming at an early age. As far as I can remember, everything started with Visual Basic. This was followed by experiments with HTML and CSS.
Out of personal interest, I have always looked for other languages and made the first steps with websites, books and videos. I have found out that it works very well if you already have ideas or projects in mind, which require knownledge in the programming language.

I understand that some of these languages are not actually programming languages.

Below you can see a (incomplete) listing of the languages I prefer.

“The best of the best”

Python

C (Embedded)

Bash

MATLAB

Puppet

Ansible

Used from time to time

Ruby

Rust

Swift

HTML

JavaScript

Java

LaTeX

Used a time ago or very rarely

PHP

CSS

UNIX

I have already gained much experience before graduation. On the recommendation of a friend and after a lot of trial and error with Ubuntu I first used Linux Mint as my productive operating system on my laptop and Windows quickly became irrelevant for me. At the beginning of my studies, I replaced my Windows & Linux laptop with a MacBook Pro, so at least I’m still working in an UNIX environment. Fortunately, my university faculty only uses Linux distributions for student computers, which is the reason why I goy my working student job. The Linux Deployment team focusses on administrating the automation of student, lab, and employee computers. This requires knowledge of Linux, Bash, Puppet and Foreman.

Furthermore, I got in touch with Linux configuration management during my internship, where RedHat and Suse operating systems were used.

Since I have always experimented with RaspberryPi single-board computers, I am particularly used to the Debian command line. Most of the time I realize IoT and automation projects.